NATIONAL SAVINGS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 114, 9 February 1944, Page 6

NATIONAL SAVINGS

Total Of £20,000,000 Reached

RESPONSE TO CAMPAIGN An announcement that National war savings in New Zealand had now reached a total of £20,000,000 was made yesterday by the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser. He said that £9,669,000 of this sum had been received 1 this financial year. He thanked the't National War Savings Committee, also each member of the 222 local committees, savings banks, postmasters and ■organizers for their part in the national savings campaign. “It was my privilege.” said Mr. Fraser, “to launch the National Savings Campaign in October, 1940, when I expressed a hope that New Zealanders would wholeheartedly support the campaign. There has been a very gratifying response. In these trying and tragie days of the world war for freedom, in addition to the terrible suffering and loss of the finest and most valuable lives, our economic and national stability is threatened. When there is more money to spend and fewer goods to buy as is the case at present, a strong tendency toward disastrous inflation, with all its attendant evils, must necessarily arise unless some counter-remedy car: be devised. The National War Savings Campaign is inevitably a part of such remedy with its appeal to save more and more and spend less and less on non-essentials. There is no doubt that such savings are a vital force in the Allied plans for victory in war and peace. “The national savings movement, which is in full operation in all the United Nations, was inaugurated for the purpose of providing a ready and effective method .for those with moderate means to help the country’s war effort by investing what they could save from their incomes in the war funds.

“Twenty million pounds is the answer from New Zealand so far, and I say ‘Well done, New Zealand war savers’—let us, move still forward in the final drive for victory and also achieve economic stability for our post-war living plans. It is clear that the highest interests of the Dominion and our own individual interests walk hand in hand. Both the present and the future a.-e best served by national war savings now.”